"Picnic at Hanging Rock": Disappearing Schoolgirls, Serenaded by the Pan Flute (Master Thereof)

I watched the most excellent and unusual Peter Weir 1975 suspense film "Picnic at Hanging Rock"; it's worth checking not least for its rather bizarre origin as a novel, and the missing last book chapter that "explained" everything but was wisely left out. Good on ya, IFC channel, for scheduling this one.

The action (such as it is -- girls go on picnic, climb rock, disappear) starts in an Australian girl's boarding school in 1900. The genius of this film is that the atmosphere of suspense and dread comes from the pre-Raphaelite beauty and dreaminess of these girls and their upright Victorian minders and the rugged working men lurking nearby; the girls with their fluttering white dresses and pressed flowers and invocations to St Valentine barely concealing raging suppressed passions and merciless personal denials; the teachers with their leonine updos and perfect posture and desperate attempts to stick a firm finger in the dyke of sexual awakening. (No pun intended; seriously, what do you take me for? You need a cold shower.)

Best of all, the dreamiest scenes are scored by the pan flute stylings of the Master himself, Gheorghe Zamfir. I knew there was something menacing about that guy.

Why I Love Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy paints with his face. He once plastered his head inside a wall. He made a sculpture of a man with his pants down, humping a tree. He dipped his penis in a paint can and painted with it. He created a sculpture called "Santa Claus with Buttplug", which was displayed in a public park in Belgium.

What's not to love?

His work is corporeal and messy and comes from that impulse that makes you smash your fork into your mashed potatoes and fling it around the room. It's a reminder of the human animal and the fact that all this stuff we have built around us doesn't change our animal nature. While other artists are inside playing Boggle, he's going face-first down the Slip-n-Slide.

It's also fun. I saw his current installation at the Whitney Museum, which has an open staircase leading from one gallery level to the next. His gallery was full of stuff playing with rooms, so for example a life-sized video of the camera view spinning around a room. You stand still but your viewpoint spins.

There was also a small enclosed room with an open doorway and a rolling executive leather office chair bolted in the center. The room turned around like a carousel at various speeds, speeding up and slowing down, and the chair spun with it. The drawings of the project on the wall showed a person in the chair; I wonder if it was ever tried out that way. It was fun to picture that.

But this was the best part -- there was an installation called something like Bang Bang Room or Bang Door or something. A four-walled room, each wall with a door in it. The room starts closed up, closed doors. Then each wall swings out on right-mounted hinges. Then each door opens and closes with a bang. This keeps happening, at various speeds, until the room closes back up and the cycle resets.

Do you know how pleasant the sound of a four banging doors is? In an echoing gallery space, with an open stairwell at one end that carries the sound to the galleries above and below?

The poor museum guards. There's only one way to make that job worse than boring, and this was it.

But wait! There was an elderly white male guard at one end of the bang room. He stood looking at the room. There was another guard on the opposite end, a young black lady. When the door flung open, the old guard could see through to the young guard. Then they'd slam shut, and he couldn't see her.

Every time the doors flung open, he grinned widely, raised his arm, and waved at her. Slam. Fling, grin, wave, slam.

The young guard just looked at him bleakly.

That whole scene made my day. Thanks, Paul McCarthy!

I love that he forced this museum to install such an annoying piece, and that you were reminded of it even if you went upstairs to look at the amazing Buckminster Fuller exhibit because you could still hear it when you stood near the stair side of the room. McCarthy one up on Fuller in this one.

Paints with his face, people. Chew on that.

Regina King, the UberMonarch of Acting

We'e you stunned by that one performance in RAY, and couldn't you not take your eyes of the actor, and didn't you think it deserved an Oscar? Me, too! And you know we're talking about Regina King, the Queen King of acting, the woman so versatile she needs a Bo Knows Acting campaign of her own.

Every time Ms King was on-screen in that movie, I couldn't take my eyes off her. That's what people mean when they talk about an actor bringing "energy" to a scene -- it doesn't mean shouting or running around or making those Jim Carrey faces (which, when he Eternally Sunshines or Man on the Moons, he's so good that he should only do projects with heavenly bodies in the title, but everything else gets into Fire Marshall Bill territory) -- it means being so alive that you light up the whole scene.

I just saw Year of the Dog, written and directed by Mike White, one of my favorite writers working today, and he might have performed a thought-experiment on me while casting, because he managed to fill his movie up with many of my favorites. Not least was King, but also there was my old Second City teacher Craig Cackowski! And Susan Mackin, who acted in a table read for one of my scripts! And Dr Steve Brule!

But back to business -- Regina King has that screen charisma that you can't buy or develop or fake. You either have it or you don't. Hollywood, wake up! King FTW!

p.s. How great is it that she was the kid in 227? God, could we use a dose of Marla Gibbs sass in this frozen-doll world of Hollywood women we've got going now. There are no women on TV giving us the business like Ms Gibbs did when I was growing up, and somehow I think that explains why we as a nation have become as arrogant and self-absorbed as Mr Jefferson and Jackee combined. Hey, you kids! Get off of my apartment stoop!

"Deadwood" (2004-2006)

I heard the charmingly no-nonsense David Milch interviewed on The Treatment; at Elvis's prodding, he did talk a bit about his father's rough-and-tumble and not entirely legal background, but he never did explain what gave him the balls to pitch a show about the Wild West in which the chief scumbags talk like Shakespearian seconds and the entire cast revolves around a 60-year-old English actor who isn't exactly known for his good looks.

Sounds great, Milch. We'll clear a place in the schedule for it right now!

My friend Killian insisted that "Deadwood" was a great show long before I got around to watching it. She forced me to watch part of an episode with her once, and of course it happened to be the most fellatio-heavy show in the entire history of the series. Good one, Killian. No thanks.

But fortunately I gave it another go and rented the DVDs, and I cannot believe how attached I've become to the rogues and murderers and Indian heads in boxes and corpse-eating pigs and delicate ladies stranded in the sea of filth that is the town of Deadwood. That 60-year-old Englishman turned out to be my most deepest love on the show, a character who as vile and noble and sexy and repulsive, lovable and cruel as... let's say Regan and Goneril as played by Lear. A bossman's gotta do what a bossman's gotta do.

This show is a miracle of casting and of stellar writing and plotting. And don't miss the gorgeous opening credits and theme song; the love and care that made this show extends to all corners of the production.

"Deadwood", huh? Sure, Milch. Sounds great. We've also got a pilot ready for a Custer-meets-Chekov show in which Custer tries to sell his house to Indians. And we've got a great Watergate-meets-Jane Austen show in which G. Gordon Liddy is played by Hugh Grant, and Nixon can't choose between his love of hotel theft and his devotion to his shit list.

(Bonus post convergence: 20 years after his turn in this dopey and appalling "Red Dawn", Powers Boothe shows his real stuff by swaggering around Deadwood as Cy Tolliver, who is, let's say, the Regan and Goneril as played by Gollum.)

"Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets (1954)

Do you know any little girls who own white dresses with voluminous petticoats? I know just the song they can dance to!

"Rock Around the Clock" was more or less the first rock and roll song (or let's say the first one for white people), though it didn't make much of a splash until it was used over the opening credits of the film The Blackboard Jungle in 1955 (bonus Glenn Ford connection!). It was later used in American Graffiti, and then as the theme song for the first season of "Happy Days", which is how 80s brats like me got to hear plenty of it and wonder why everyone was so goddamned apple-cheeked back then.

It's a song perfectly evocative of its time -- a brightly-colored, spit-curled era of sock hops and soda jerks -- yet timeless and inexhaustible. Whereas the likes of "Teen Angel" now sound hopelessly mired in 50s goo, this song remains as fresh and spunky as the day it was recorded. (Or, uh, re-recorded, since Haley sang a shorter version specifically for "Happy Days". And since this is rock, please feel free to read "spunky" as a double entendre).

This song works because it's rock and roll to the core: playful and dangerous, fun yet menacing. Get up and dance, dammit! Those opening drum hits -- they propel you out of your seat, but maybe straight into the fist of an angry teenager. The song travels on a great journey that takes you from happy clappy to "I think the guitarist is stalking me". You count along with Bill because you're afraid not to, but then the band winds it up and lets you go....back to their van!

Go ahead, try to listen to this swing rhythm-and-blues without tapping your foot and bopping your head. Even bad dancers can dance to this one.

Put your glad rags on and join me, honey!

I explain contemporary country music to you

I like country music. I don't like it ironically, and I don't like-it-but-only-Johnny-Cash-because-I saw-some-movie. I don't like it because it's funny to like Hank Williams Jr because he is a weird yelling-voiced clown with a non-clown father and a scary son (p.s. Mr. Show did a brilliant music infomercial sketch featuring C.S. Lewis Jr. singing the hits, and that made me laugh very hard for infinity because of course I read the Narnia books PLUS the Screwtape Letters and because I find Hank Williams Jr. so strange and disturbing and no, I am not and never will be ready for some football).

What? Oh...I really like it. I discovered the country music station when I was in college and needed to calm down from all that learnin' and tequila shootin' and I found the country hits to be very soothing. There was that song "Nobody", which is about a woman asking her husband whose lipstick she found, and who's perfume is in the air, and no matter what she asks, the answer is a sad, resigned, "Nobody. Just...nobody." I mean, this is life, folks. (p.s. It also always makes me think of The Family Circus, and those ghosts Ida Know and Not Me or Nobody or Jeffy's Psycho or whatever. I think one of the ghosts is Nobody? Anyway, I picture that lady's husband getting all crazy with Nobody and Ida Know and having his wife walk in and start singing that song.)

Our local country music station here in LA inexplicably changed formats one day and I was horrified. I cannot listen to emo rock hits all day, people! I do not like the disco station in the morning! I can only take so much R Kelly! Thankfully, another station took up the slack and hired a lot of the same DJs and order was restored to my life. (p.s. I still miss you, Peter Tilden!)

Country music helps me understand election results and which movies become blockbusters and where our national anxieties lie, and also my own life and dreams that I didn't even know I had. Surprise! So does pop music and hip hop and Josh Groban, so stop being a douche and admit that anyone can find anything in music if they stop letting their peer group critique their private playlists. I'm so sick of people proudly claiming to like all kinds of music, "EXCEPT country. High five!" It does not make you cool. It's like people who love to tell you how much they hate cats, just on principle. Oh, wow, you hate cats -- YOU ARE SO COOL AND NOT GAY AT ALL.

If you haven't kept up with the country hits lately, here's a primer on who's who on the radio today. It slightly incomplete, but it will help you get started:

1. Montgomery Gentry -- this is one younger guy who plays guitar and sings, and one older guy in a long black duster who acts as the hype man and carries his mic around like Freddie Mercury (though he'd KILL you with his bare hands if you implied any kinship between him and Freddie Mercury) and sings badly, but you can tell that he's proud of singing badly (and occasionally talk-singing!) because it shows what a regular man's man he is and how's he's the salt of the earth and whatnot. Their songs are not subtle. In one video, the one guy wore flared pants with MIA and POW stitched on the flares, I think in rhinestones. I mean, okay? They are great for people who hate country, because they confirm all fears of rowdy rednecks whipping mic stands around, and they are great for people who love country, because they are so unabashedly what people who hate country hate.

2. Big & Rich -- do you want a little bang in your ying yang? Well, do you? How about some zang in your zing zang? I hope you do, because Big & Rich are bringing it to you whether you like it or not. They've formed a Music Mafia to sing in your face with their atonal harmonies and randy puns, just so you can save a horse and ride a cowboy. They are a walking t-shirt slogan factory. Sometimes Rich wears a fur coat, and oh my Lord they are crazy. Crazy crafty, that's what, because they know the value of pushing the boundaries of country fans (Cowboy Troy) while simultaneously supporting the unmistakable real deal (Gretchen Wilson). One of them is tall and is called Big; the other is surnamed Rich and is called Rich. I mean, they aren't going to tax your expectations too much, folks, but you will be singing along before you realize you've even opened your mouth.

3. Carrie Underwood -- I ain't mad at ya for singing at me about Jesus and his driving powers, Carrie, because you can SANG. That song about smashing your cheating boyfriend's SUV is one of the finest of the last ten years, girlfriend. It makes me all sassy and shit.

4. Alan Jackson -- he has got to be the most boring man in country, and I betcha he's really proud of it. I mean, this is the man who was proud of not knowing the difference between Iraq and Iran. Geez, dude, get a MAP.

5. Jo Dee Messina -- Unmistakable, joyous, driving-with-the-top-down voice. I love her. Although, I just realized that I don't think I've ever seen her on TV or in a magazine or anywhere. It's possible she doesn't really exist.

6. Dolly Parton -- she is so great that she has a hit right now where she chastises her own friends for coming to her and whining about their sorry lives. I mean, she straight up ridicules the friend, there's a line in there about playing a tiny violin if she had one. But Dolly is so appealing and her voice is so fabulous that she could sing about strangling people and make it sound darling. Just don't go over to her house when you're not feeling so hot.

7. Toby Keith -- I don't know. I can't explain him. He's not handsome, he did that whole weird bullying thing with the Dixie Chicks wherein he supported our troops by trampling on the freedoms that they're fighting for, and yet he claims to be a Democrat. I don't get this guy at all, but damn if he isn't talented. Sometimes he sings like a goat, but it's such a nice, distinctive goat. He writes good songs, so that even when they are annoying (the one that goes Let's Talk About Meee-ee-eee) or disturbing (the one about lynching someone and then buying your horse a drink; no, seriously, this is an actual song), they are totally catchy and fun to listen to. How does he do that? I think Toby Keith is an illusionist and is preparing to disappear us all.

8. Chris Gaines -- holy crap, that whole thing was weird. Country music is so exacting and tough on its artists that poor old calculating Garth had to invent a painfully lame persona in order to experiment a bit musically. His rock persona was like one created by a guy who has never heard rock music and only knows about it from old Rick Springfield album covers. It was hilariously odd and wrong and dumb and I love him for it. Oh, and the Garth Brooks side is all talented and stuff, but think about it: do you think he went out one night and dug a grave and buried Chris Gaines on the side of Thunder Road?

9. Shania Twain -- is a robot.

See how interesting and varied country music is? And that was off the top of my head!

My Loves (of the big and small screens)

I can't explain it. These people show up in a guest spot or a movie trailer and I sit up and go "Hey! I've got to see that! I love you, Ian McShane!"

1. SuperDave Osborne, aka Bob Einstein.
Ok, his real name is Bob Einstein, so that's cause for love right there. He played Officer Judy on the Smothers Brothers show, and though that was before my time and I've only seen clips, the very name Officer Judy makes me laugh every time. I mostly know him as SuperDave, the parody of the Evel Knievel-style stunt performer, and I've mostly only seen SuperDave on Letterman's show. So when I think about it, I've barely ever seen this guy, yet every time is a treat. Thanks to Curb Your Enthusiasm (and a few Arrested Developments), he's around more than ever before. His starkly deadpan delivery and distinctive husky voice make him instantly recognizable. His no-bullshit demeanor in the midst of playing the most bullshitting of characters is utterly delightful. He doesn't beg you to laugh because he knows you will. Love!

2. William Daniels
That's Dr. Craig to me, of my beloved St. Elsewhere. Another one with a highly distinctive voice (maybe that's the secret to my heart) -- a short guy with a powerful presence, perfectly cast as John Adams in the movie musical 1776 (he sings, too!). He's a perfectionist and an autocrat doomed by his own pride (just like me!). In real life, he's been married to his actress wife Bonnie Bartlett (Mrs. Craig, natch) for one million years. He was the voice of KITT the car. When he took the part of Mr. Feeny in Boy Meets World, I despaired that he was sinking into the sitcom mire, but he's smarter than I am and picked a good show. He's 80 now, so my longtime dream of acting with him is increasingly imperiled, but I'll always have him yelling at Erlich. Get younger, Mr. Daniels!

3. Gary Cole
You find me another guy who can perfectly embody murderer Jeffrey MacDonald, superfather Mr. Brady-via-Robert-Reed, and the boss man in Office Space. Oh, you can't? Of course not -- no one else is as perfect as Cole. He brings class and gravity to everything he does, while being one of the funniest guys around. Try that for your next party trick. Hint: you can't do it!

4. Robin Weigert
If I get started on the Deadwood cast, I'll never stop, so let's just mention the amazing Jane Canary. I've only ever seen her in one other thing, a bizarre bit in Angels in America where she plays a Mormon diorama thing come to life. She just has one of those faces -- kind and compelling, a face that really seems to see the people she's looking at, which brings every scene she plays to crackling life. Hey -- IMDB just told me she's on the new show Life! Now I have to watch that.

"My Kid Could Paint That" (2007, dir Amir Bar-Lev)

Buy what you love, because if you buy art as an investment, you're playing a loser's game. Not a losing game, necessarily, but a loser's game, a game played by people with too much money and too little interest in natural gas futures or real estate. Art is meant to be lived with, to instruct and enlighten and enrage and love, yet much of the best of Western art (at least; how the fuck would I know about any other kind?) is locked up in temp-controlled storage units owned by the wealthy. With the wine, maybe. (Ha! Of course not -- totally different temps required. Wow, that's a filthy rich person's sidesplitter right there!)

Imagine pouring your heart and soul and possibly risking your life or risking exile to produce a work of art, and now, however many years later, it's locked in a giant closet in Sylvester Stallone's house, or Lars Ullrich's. Want to see art used as an investment? Watch the Metallica doc "Some Kind of Monster" and see Lars sell off his Basquiats and whatever. Let's hope there is no afterlife or there are bound to be some very disappointed paint-spattered souls up there.

But here's where I'll contradict myself -- art almost always has been defined by patronage, and I'm thinking that's the way it should be. Pieces produced for a specific purpose, often erotic (I think most major art museums should just be called what they are: "Museum of the Depiction of the Female Butt, Plus Some Saints and Jesus to Alleviate Resultant Guilt"). This whole bit of nonsense about one soul expressing himherself is kind of...well, the work's going to go on the auction block one way or another, isn't it? So it isn't so much expressing one's soul as it is guessing what other souls will want to see. Patronage. (Oh, and HINT: the other souls mostly want to see naked female butts, and/or war scenes and/or people being eaten by sharks.)

All I'm getting at is that I saw Amir Bar-Lev's doc, and although I was enraged for the first ten or fifteen minutes by the fact that I paid eleven dollars to sit in a theatre with six other people and some dopey woman STILL came right up to my seat in the back and asked to see my ticket because I had apparently sat in her ASSIGNED SEAT (Jesus, what is this, EUROPEAN SOCIALISM WITH THE ASSIGNED MOVIE SEATS?) -- I mean, for Christ's sake lady, there were only four other people there and you still walked down my row and said "Excuse me" to climb over my legs and you still bumped me out of my seat, I mean THIS IS AMERICA, LADY! -- so, fine, she picked the seat I should've picked, all's fair and I moved to another seat in only a 95% huff, and I was then further enraged by the fact that Amir didn't seem to have complete command of the focusing ring on his camera, so most of the interview sequences in the early part of the movie (with the journalist lady in overalls, and with Mark-the-dad) were fuzzy and, seriously, I paid 11 dollars to sit there watching a movie by a guy who couldn't manage to shine enough lights on his subjects and maybe needs new glasses.

But this movie was fantastic, really, and I think it comes down to Amir's niceness. He's so nice, it seems, that I feel I can call him by his first name. He's humble. He's not today's style of doc filmmaker, which is too often someone who wants to make narrative films with Angelina Jolie but needs to do something cheap and provocative first in order to get noticed. He's not a jerk with a camera looking for an expose or looking to make a point about society such that he'll edit his footage to fit it no matter how poorly his subject matches his theme --

(oh, I just watched "The Staircase" on DVD, CAN YOU TELL? Fascinating to watch and all, but damn there must be some kind of reverse libel statute that doesn't let you cover up so much of a real incident to fit your "American Southerners are homophobes and fools who consider justice a cotton-picking nuisance, and women are important only insofar as they are cute and doubtless golddigging and wear their hair in ways we find appealing", THAT MEANS YOU Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (writer/dir) and ESPECIALLY YOU Denis Poncet (producer), thanks for including the DVD extra of your own views on the case that explains your movie and it's creepy slant) --

...uh, where was I? Right, Amir. He's a nice guy who wanted to catch the painting prodigy in her ascendancy, and who's heart was, I think, genuinely a bit broken when he came to the inescapable conclusion that daddy was "helping" the prodigy to employ shape/form/repetition and theme in her paintings. You know, the things that a four year old couldn't employ or formulate. The things that make the paintings appealing and that make them sell.

Well, no. They sell because of the story behind them, and that's fine because lots of art is like that. "Guernica", or Motherwell without the Spanish war is...what? Mondrian without the move to New York and the influence of jazz is...not the same, I think. So the people who buy little Marla (+ big Mark's, I think) paintings are not being duped in any way that any art buyer isn't duped.

This is why people need to buy what they love. The price point is beside the point. I can give you a compare/contrast scenario to illustrate (no pun intended) what I mean: Norton Simon vs. Seymour H. Knox, Jr. Visit the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and you will see a wonderful, passionate, cohesive collection by a man who loved art, who especially loved Degas and his little cast horses. There's a viewpoint to this museum, and an expansive generosity. Now hop on a plane to Buffalo and visit the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. This collection is shit, and I'm not just saying that because I stupidly made a special trip to the frozen center of hell (Buffalo in winter) just to see it. It's shit because it's clearly the work of a rich guy, and subsequent acquisitions directors, who decided to cherry-pick from the big names in modern art. This is a collection meant to impress with it's price tag, and the works are strung up in a stiff line like the Von Trapp children reporting to Captain Dad. Entering that gallery is like walking into a party where all the guests are big name but have no relationship with one another and simply stand around glumly with drinks in their hands. This gallery left me cold, while the Norton Simon makes my heart pound with the possibilities of humanity. I can't tell you how angry it makes me that some wonderful stuff -- a side of beef by Soutine, my beloved "Yellow Christ" by Gauguin -- is stranded in the art-prison of the Albright-Knox.

So the Marla controversy is really about money and art, about the acquisition position. It isn't about the dopey "controversy" over whether modern art is "real" art -- I mean, god, are we still worrying about that? We aren't, are we? I'm sure Morely Safer is, but the rest of us? (Go paint more hotel rooms and relax, Morely.)

(Oh, shit -- I just realized how poetically perfect the Marla/Morely naming alliteration is! I would totally do that if I were naming these characters in a novel! It's FATE!)

The movie works because it doesn't stoop to Safer-cynicism or Wallace-skepticism with the subjects. Amir lets them talk. He asks the needed questions and lets their faces tell the story. He, miraculously, gets the gallery owner who made his fortune (? Or some good amount) off of Marla to admit what we movie-goers suspected an hour earlier: that he, a frustrated photo-realist painter, was championing Marla in order to stick it the art community and their inexplicable love of the quick-'n-easy and the abstract. It's a story of revenge and ego and the desire to be special (Mark, this means you). It's MacBeth. So, of course, it's tragedy, but a small tragedy, after all. Amir sympathizes with the family, especially Mom Laura and Non-Prodigy Zane, and we sympathize with all of them, too. I'm sorry you guys got into this, that your weaknesses let it happen. Weaknesses like a need for expression, a need to be heard, love of your children, loyalty to your family, not wanting to hurt or doubt the ones you love, and money-is-good. Nice, meaty, human weaknesses.

But seriously, if you're buying Markla's paintings, you'd better do it because you love them, not because you're hoping to cash in. Don't be an ass about it. This isn't "F is for Fake" territory here, so don't pretend it is.

My mom had these little blue Chinese dragons, book ends, when I was growing up. I loved them. I saw some just like them years later in a (closed) store in Boston's Chinatown and took a photo of them. Lately, I saw them on sale at Plantation LA for $250. My mom says she bought them for something like $25. It's not that they've become valuable all of a sudden -- it's that the Plantation LA buyer went down to some Chinatown somewhere and you did not, so you pay a premium.

But no matter how much or little you pay, it doesn't matter, so long as you love your dragons.

"Strangers on a Train" (1951), dir by Alfred Hitchcock

This movie exploits one of my worst fears (besides sharp corners on the edges of tables and, and this explains the first one, disembowelment): crazy people who talk to you in public settings. And then they stalk you and try to frame you for murder, and then your life is ruined.

It shouldn't feel right that a movie about a psychopathic murderer is as sprightly and fun as this one, but maybe it's the most honest way to deal with the games being played by the two men on the train. The world goes on no matter what freakiness you encounter one seat over. Hitchcock reminds us of this again and again, with our troubled heroes encountering person after person who's just going about his day or doing his job or enjoying his night at the carnival without caring about your murder plots or the man who's trying to ruin your life. I need cotton candy, and no creep stalking his prey is going to stand in my way!

Robert Walker does something very difficult in this movie: he plays a crazy person who knows he's crazy. Bruno isn't sane-crazy like Cuckoo's Nest inmates; he isn't cuckoo-crazy like a Batman villain; he isn't animal-crazy like the Cape Fear guy. He's psychotically crazy, which means that he seems rather normal. It's a Ted Bundy crazy. It's the type that convinces himself that his actions are justified with rigorous application of Crazy Logic. When explaining C-Logic to you, the psychopath does so in a calm, matter-of-fact manner and, when you react with disgust, makes you out to be the nutter.

In this case, the psychopath needs to involve someone else in his plan. He isn't explaining after-the-fact; he's laying out the plan in advance. Thus Walker has to play Bruno as a psycho who knows that he's acting for an audience. He performs for Guy Haines in order to make the proposed murders seem natural and inevitable. Walker has to act while acting, while squeezing Guy slowly tighter in Bruno's soft-from-underwork hands. He does a wonderful job, and unfortunately it seems he came by his look of haunted and resentful confusion honestly, given that he apparently suffered from depression and alcoholism and died at the age of 32 shortly after making this film.

This is a great film about how easy it is for one person to rule over another with the use of two great weapons of persuasion: Flattery and Resentment. Prey successfully on someone's ego about what they do have and on their bitterness against what they don't have and you've got yourself a willing puppet. Every demagogue and tyrant knows this, whether at the level of nation-building or spousal abuse. Guy resists Bruno's manipulation, but too late, at first. Only Hitchcock saves him at the end when order is restored.

Patricia Highsmith, author of the book of the same name on which the movie was based, did not restore order in her version of the story. I don't think she believed that the good guys always will or should win in the end. She created Tom Ripley, and Ripley's evil always carries the day. She knew that sometimes evil sticks around. Sure, it dies like everything else; every regime falls eventually, every domestic tyrant dies sooner or later. But that doesn't mean they were defeated by anything but time.

Thus this is a good time in history to revisit "Strangers on a Train". We need to remind ourselves of how easy it is to ignore the Brunos and their horrible (though horribly compelling) schemes before it's too late and they've set their plans in motion, and you're implicated. You! And you didn't do anything except do nothing!

Director Ang Lee

If I could somehow steal Ang Lee's talent when he was unconscious, I would push him down the stairs to make it happen. And then I would run. I'm being honest here. It wouldn't be done with malice; it would be the push of someone who is insanely jealous, Salieri-level jealous if Salieri had just been a guy with a blog.

I love Lee's movies so much that I've had the Wedding Banquet sitting downstairs unwatched for two weeks now. I'm afraid to watch it because then it will have been watched. It's the same reason I spaced out the reading of all the Josephine Tey books -- you have to take your time with these things and think about them.

The same person directed Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Sense & Sensibility, and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. That's just not fair. He excels across the genre board because all of his movies are about the only thing that matters: relationships. They are about the people in them and how they relate to other people, and how they think about themselves. They are very humane films without being sentimental or cloy.

None of the characters in his films are there as props or sounding boards for other characters. They aren't plot devices. They're people with their own needs and desires (often painfully palpable and heartbreakingly simple desires). It must be wonderful to act for Lee and receive respect and understanding for what you're trying to do. Many directors hire their alter ego as the (male) star, and a beautiful woman as the male star's accessory. Lee can work with any character of any age, nationality, sex, whatever, because he knows that we all want the same things: love, respect, and understanding.

I never would've thought I'd be on the edge of my seat about a schoolteacher getting anonymous love notes and being flirted with by an exuberant guy on a motorcycle, but there you are.

Maybe I wouldn't push him down the stairs, even in my deal-with-the-devil scenario. Lord knows he might turn and levitate and kick me in the face. It's not worth it!

p.s. We do not speak of The Hulk. We do not think of The Ice Storm. Even geniuses can sleepwalk or go insane or need to pay off their mob debts.

Lisa Ling Has Balls of Steel

Let's say you're visiting the inmates at animal prison, otherwise known as the zoo. The animals stare dolefully back at you: "We're innocent!" they say, but you know better. "Sure," you say, "everyone here says that. Tell it to the flamingos."

You enter the monkey house and cover your ears. The monkeys are the angriest inmates in there, and they are angry at you because they think like you do. They know that a mere branch or two of the evolutionary tree stands between your side of the glass and theirs. They are PISSED. They scream and bounce off the walls and set up a racket that strikes deep in our homo sapien souls, rattling us to our vertebrate bones with reminders of our African origins and the sounds of the jungle or opposite riverbank or savanna all around us and no walls to keep us in.

That's also the sound of the television show "The View", and the talking head news shows, and "20/20" and so much more. It's the sound of much of television these days, where everyone has both an asshole and a plethora of opinions, and it's hard to tell the difference. The loudest opinion wins. No one feels the need to back their opinions with facts or experience, because it's what they think and they aren't afraid to say it because they are honest. "Honest" is the new "Ignorant".

You can't run a nation on opinions, or it leads you to start disastrous wars and ignore people baking in the Superdome and act with impunity in regards to the Constitution. When citizens learn to value their opinions over their learned judgment, they forget how to vote with their heads. They vote, instead, with their assholes.

Lisa Ling is a young journalist who started as a teenager, reporting for Channel One. That led to her gig on "The View", a show that hoped to give women at home during the day intelligent voices to listen to. It was a show that wouldn't talk down to them. Somehow it instead became a show about screaming over each other and talking about being rich and famous, which represents none of the people watching but provides them with WWE-style entertainment.

Ling was the twentysomething champ-een back when "The View" hoped to represent different generations of women. She was, and is, smart and articulate and funny. She's comfortable in her own skin. She notices the world and its problems and thinks she can do something about them, be actively engaged. She didn't belong on that show.

She left and returned to journalism. I've set up a TIVO wishlist for her name and have thus caught her National Geographic specials on a maximum security prison and another on North Korea, and her Oxygen special on "Who Cares About Girls: Sex Slaves in India".

Watch her work. Seek it out and watch it. I don't tend to eagerly sit down to watch something called "Sex Slaves in India" because of the crushing reality of how fucked up the world is, and for girls and women in particular. But Ling's approach makes it not on bearable but edifying. She's fearless. She stop on a prison yard full of warring gangs and interviewed the gang members. She asked North Korean families about the Glorious Leader. She followed along on raids that rescue girls impressed into sex work from their brothels. She's a young Asian American women who fits in everywhere she goes and can talk to anyone about anything. It works because she's smart, unselfconscious, and genuinely curious. She listens. She probes. She challenges. And she doesn't just seek problems, she seeks solutions. Her reports show us the people who are fighting back, like the Nepalese doctor who performs cataract surgery on North Korean citizens with the permission of the Premier (thus showing the Premier's generosity, of course).

Ling had a chance to have her head turned by the easy money, easy fame, and easy work of "The View", but she wanted to talk about other people instead of herself. How terribly old-fashioned of her! How Bill Moyers! Why don't she and Anderson Cooper has a little "look at us being journalists and going to war zones and not just reporting spin" party in Baghdad or the Gaza strip! And then they could play a round of "The Mole" like the little smartypants they are!

Lisa Ling gives me hope that we aren't really a nation of people with our collective head stuck up our collective asshole, and I can't think of any higher praise in 2007.

"You can complain, but you can't whine." -- Lessons from Rowing Class

When I lived in Boston, for a few summers I took summer rowing classes at Boston University. These were excellent experiences for the first few years, but the last one was no fun (I had to switch to the morning class instead of the late afternoon one, and those morning people are CRANKY).

Our coaches were either varsity crew members or recent alums, but one summer we had the good fortune to also be coached by a former coach for the U.S. Women's National Team. A real coach! And B.U. has a big time team, so we community rowing joes were getting quality instruction out there on the Charles River. The best thing was that they expected us to WORK, and they yelled at us and everything. It was great!

My fellow (afternoon class) crew members were awesome, especially a couple in their forties who collected Shaker furniture. The husband and I went out in a two-man scull once and kept steering into the shore because we were so unfamiliar with having an oar in both hands. Good times.

The national coach dude was pretty intense, and terribly frustrated when our community-level cardiovascular systems were not equal to the pace he wanted to set. But he was very nice and a good teacher and coach with a good sense of humor. I tried flirting with him, but I didn't get far. It's possible that my flirting may have seemed more like pestering or lingering or maybe a touch of psychosis. Maybe heat stroke.

On one of our first days with him, some of us were maybe exclaiming a bit -- good-naturedly, I'd bet -- about the pace he set. He put his head in his hands and said, "God, that sound! Listen, people -- you can complain, but you CAN'T WHINE. I hate the sound of whining."

Is that profound or what? I took that as my personal motto (second personal motto; first is, "Safety First!"), and have found it to be a good pep talk in moments of crisis and/or self-pity. I can complain, but I can't whine. Complaining is specific and opens the path the solutions ("It's too hot in here! Open a window!"). Whining is the sound of an engine that won't start ("I'm so freaking hot! I can't stand being hot, it makes the back of my thighs sweat, and I stick to the chair! Why are you doing this to me? You hate me, don't you? Everyone does.").

Or maybe it's just that complaining tends to take fewer words, so the duration of a complaint is less than that of a whine. Whines also take longer because the syllables are elongated to demonstrate how much the whiner is suffering. ("It's hot" vs. "I'm sooooo hoooo-ot! I'm go-ING to diiiiie!") Also, whining is close to a dog-whistle pitch, while complaining is bearable for the human ear.

Thanks, Community Rowing Coach Whose Name I've Forgotten. Hope you haven't given yourself an aneurysm or something!

"Body Heat" is not "Nine 1/2 Weeks"

It's also not "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (the remake). They came out in 1981, 1986, 1981, respectively, and they all starred hot blondes and...guys. Ok, pretty hot guys, too. And they were known for being sexxy, hot nude movies!, so I've had them confused for the last twenty years or so.

Which is odd, because I think I've seen "Nine 1/2 Weeks" (which is not "8 1/2" or foreign) -- I'm not sure if I saw the good parts. I guess I didn't if I'm not sure. That movie made me uncomfortable because Kim Basinger was pretty unhappy about the whole thing, and Mickey Rourke is bizarre.

He's also in "Body Heat", so you can see how confusing this all is. I thought this was basically a sexy sex movie about sex. Nobody told me it was a noir about good old-fashioned husband-murdering!

I finally saw "Body Heat" recently, and I loved and adored it and want to go back in time and write it myself. This was Lawrence Kasdan's directing debut after also writing some movie about muppets or something? Muppets hitting back?

The casting is brilliant, the actors are perfect, Kathleen Turner is my hero, William Hurt brings his peculiar implosive disgust to this loser's tale and makes it both funny and pathetic. And Ted Danson! My god, I didn't even recognize old lean 'n lanky. He has the trickiest part in the movie and pulls it off with perfect understated grace -- he makes it look so easy that you almost forget to notice how the whole movie hangs on him.

This is a movie about love; not adultery love or I'll-murder-for-you love or narcissism, not even so much love of great movie genres, but other kinds of love. Less explosive kinds. Friendship. Love of justice (Ted Danson's character). Love of the law (J.A. Preston's character). Love of power (Richard Crenna). Love of the game (Turner). Love of hot blondes.

Dear Ted Danson -- make brilliant indie movies and show your chops again. Come on! Don't deny us! You could have Cary Grant's career in reverse!

Robert Sean Leonard on "House"

I made the mistake of seeing "Dead Poets Society" twice; the first time you notice its earnest sincerity, the second time you notice its exasperating sentimentality. The worst part was watching Robert Sean Leonard mope around with his big cow eyes, dripping his sensitivity all over the place. I swore off the RSL right then and there.

This particular boycott was very easy to keep up because he never seemed to be in anything I wanted to watch. Since 1989, RSL has apparently been winning Tonys or some "I'm so special and New Yorkie!" crap like that, so, fine, I was happily RSL-free.

Then "House" came on the T.V. and I had many layers of prejudice against it: 1) Hugh Laurie is funny and British, not dour and American; 2) I was worn out by medical shows -- I did a long, dedicated residency with "ER" that ended when the show got too soapy, I'd had plenty of "Trapper John, MD" growing up, along with vague memories of "Quincy", and nothing could ever match the genuis of "St. Elsewhere" anyway, so why bother?; 3) the character was inspired by Sherlock Holmes, so he's called House, GET IT?; 4) he's a cranky, non-PC, man-you-love-to-hate, Becker of a guy, and I didn't watch "Becker" for good reason; and 5) RSL. Case closed. I'm not watching "House".

But it kept sticking around, and one day I was so bored I decided to increase my knowledge of current shows by watching a season three episode and getting it over with. Well, sew my buttons, this show is fantastic! I instantly became addicted.

It gives you to mystery of the diagnosis without fetishizing it like procedurals do with crime, and it gives you the character's personalities without lapsing into distracting melodrama. The best of both worlds, and perfectly cast to boot.

And wouldn't you know, my old nemesis Leonard is stellar in the part of Wilson, House's best (and only) friend. He's witty and noble, kind and depressed and sarcastic. He's got that look in his eyes, that awful vulnerability and hurt that even the best actor can't fake. It's the same look that Ed Flanders had as kind, tough but tortured Dr. Westphall on"St. Elsewhere". It's the look that brought that tremendous dark depth to Montgomery Clift's characters. (Incidentally, neither of those actors had happy personal stories, so here's hoping that RSL really is a great enough actor to fake it.)

Curses, RSL! You've defeated me by being a great actor and stealing my TV heart!

"Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol

Just thinking about this song gets your toe a-tappin' and your head a-bobbin'; it has that perfect blend of mellow reflection and defiant rockin' to suit almost any mood. It's a song about being so far into self-pity that you're past it, suddenly happy to bop around despite being a pathetic wallflower and make your own fun. Or masturbate. It might be about masturbation.

(I still remember my junior high health teacher singing and dancing around the room to "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Even I knew what that one was about, and he didn't? Maybe as our health teacher he was giving us some kind of secret message, the kind of message that got Joycelyn Elders booted from the Surgeon General's office (she wanted to "ask the world to dance", too). Hmmm, I hadn't thought of this. Stealth teaching in a Christian Right-dominated society.)

I read an interview with Billy Idol in his heyday, and he said that he has no problem with people who laugh at his punk posturing -- that he welcomes it, in fact, as long as they're open to his music. I can believe that a man with that perspective could write a song as matter-of-factly great as this one.

My friend Killian has a theory that songs with "la la la" sections automatically might be great. This song's excellent "oh oh oh-oh" bits bear that out, along with its perfectly-measured tempo changes and Idol's brilliant performance. He tells the story of the song from smooth to snarl to "scat" (what one set of lyrics I found on the internet hilariously called his oh oh oh-ohs) to scream with perfect ease.

Dude put toothpaste in his hair, but he could sing.

F, Marry, Kill: Tom Ripley, Holden Caufield, and Henry James

F, Marry or Kill? You'd have to kill Tom Ripley, obviously, in preemptive self-defense. Marry Holden because he's so sensitive, which leaves Henry, who you wouldn't so much F as spend an awkward evening with unsatisfying results, then never speak to him again and look away when you see him in public.

These guys are three sides of the same three-sided coin, despite the fact that only one was a "real" person, for those of you who are literalists and fictionphobes. (It's so typical of you to hold someone's fiction-ness against them, as if they are second class citizens!) They cannot get into someone else's mind or walk a mile in someone else's shoes because they think other people's shoes smell and will doubtless give them athlete's foot. Other people are inexplicable and annoying and rather gross to these guys. They either hate them or idealize them. They try and fail to make other people better than they are.

Holden believes there are two types of people in the world: idiots and Phoebe. But he knows that he's doomed to be misunderstood or abused by the idiots, and that he's bound to fuck things up with the Phoebies. His saving grace is that Phoebe will forgive him.

Tom believes there are two types of people in the world: Tom Ripley and all the people he despises and/or kills. Thank goodness he has those forgery/murder/identity theft hobbies to keep his spirits up.

Henry believes there are two types of people: Henry alter egos and naive women full of crippling self-doubt or crippling self-confidence. Women are just waiting to be victimized, and all Henry Alter Ego can do is watch and wring his hands and hate them a little for being so dumb.

Thus the core problem for these men is, of course, women, those boorish or beautiful or clingy or coquettish puzzles who insist on being both alluring and repulsive. Women never act right, and they can be terribly pathetic and/or treacherous. Men make no sense to these guys, either, but the great folly of men is when they abuse women or lose their heads over them or both. It's all about the ladies.

So if the game were reversed, Tom would kill you and convince himself it was your fault; Holden would F you and then get way too attached until you had to change your cell phone number just to get away from him; and Henry would marry you just to make you miserable.

Mike Judge, the funniest man in America

"Beavis and Butthead" was so smart, it was dumb. So dumb it was smart? Both? Had they been Mike Judge's only contributions to American culture, he would still deserve a nod as an important contributor to smart comedy in a country that insists on acting increasingly dumb. Ever since Beavis told Morrissey to "get up off the ground and stop whining" in one of his videos, I've been in love.

Judge hasn't stopped working since, and the miracle is that he didn't pander to his presumed audience in order to increase his popularity and ride the gravy train of crude to the end of the line. He's gotten better and sharper and more subversively satirical as he's gone along. He's also gotten kinder, an almost unheard-of evolution for a highly successful television writer. His comedy despairs for the willful stupidity of mankind, but it does not condescend. He has hope. He doesn't think he's superior to his audience because he has made a lot of money, and that is a rare quality in popular culture indeed. (And if he does feel superior, he hides it very well.)

"King of the Hill" is a marvel of character-based comedy that respects both its characters and its audience. Hank and Peggy and the rest have their laughable flaws and exaggerated self-regard, but they also have their admirable qualities, most notably a core of decency that Judge celebrates in his work as the only thing that can save us from our own stupidity. It's no coincidence that the younger generation (Bobby, Connie, even poor Joseph) are the calmest, nicest, most tolerant and most curious characters in the show. They point to a future that has a chance, just maybe, of being better than the past.

We all know that OFFICE SPACE is a cult classic for the cubicle crowd (which is really everyone, whether you've worked in an office or avoided it because you suspect it's just like this movie presents it), but it's time now to make IDIOCRACY the classic it deserves to be. Forget its bizarre release (or non-release) history -- studio machinations are none of the audience's business, since they never make for a better film and we can't do anything about them anyway. This movie is hilarious in many ways, but mostly in its willingness to be stupid to be smart (that again). Presenting a future overwhelmed with advertising, sexual innuendo, and violence is not exactly groundbreaking, but linking it to our own embrace of things we know are dumbing us down and calling out the capable people who prefer to do nothing rather than lift a finger to stop it (as represented by the Luke Wilson character) is. Groundbreaking, that is. Showing the sheer scrot-level to which we allow ourselves to sink is not only funny but very very...funny. Oh, and a bit sad, if you have any hope for humanity and/or America at all. (Hmmm, "or" I guess would be America without humanity. Are we there yet?)

I feel like a scrot myself for analyzing a comedy, especially one that relies on yelling, slogans, phallic monster trucks, and the transmutation of Fuddruckers into ButtFuckers to tell its story. But that shit's funny, and it's accurate as well. I guess people haven't seen the movie due to its theatrical disappearing act, mixed reviews, and the fact that it hits too close to home. We can watch JACKASS, but we can't stand some prissy smartypants making fun of JACKASS. It's no coincidence that the people of the future ridicule Luke Wilson's perfectly logical comments by repeating them in a high-pitched voice.

Other great things about Judge are: that he's a Texan, that he shot his movie in Austin, and that he works with a regular group of hilarious actors (e.g. Stephen Root, the marvelous David Herman). His casting is impeccable. He is one of the few people in the state of mind and money that is "Hollywood" who goes his own way. He has something to say and he says it with a minimum of fuss or self-promotion.

And he's very, very funny.

Pop-Tarts: The Mostest of Toaster Pastries

Pop-Tarts, how I love you.

You hit the spot. You are cute and easy to heat and eat. You are certifiably flammable when left in a toaster too long -- trust you to have that hint of danger about you, you old scamp (44 years old this year, you cougar). You solve many a hunger pang problem with a minimum of fuss. You are the James Bond of toaster pastries.

Some defile you with butter -- I had never heard of this until I read it on the internet, which proves that the internet spreads filth for the mind. Butter on Pop-Tarts is nothing but food porn, and I think more of you than that, Pop-Tarts. I would never subject you to that.

Some eat you raw. The uncooked food movement has reached even to you, has it? Will they stop at nothing? Yet only heat releases that sweet lava center. And don't they know that Pop-Tarts is Latin for "put it in the toaster"?

I forgot about you for years, Pop-Tarts, but our estrangement wasn't you, it was me. I was foolish. I thought I'd outgrown you. Now I know you don't outgrow perfection.

Hikers and bicyclists knew about your all along, didn't they, you little adventure-seeker? They remembered that you are high-carb and low fat, a perfect burst of energy for a dreary trek around the cubicle. I mean trail. I mean couch.

I love you, Pop-Tarts Toaster Pastries.

(But only the strawberry frosted ones; the others are crap on a cracker.)

OxiClean. No need to yell.

Look, I swear I just read a novella by D.H. Lawrence, and another by Henry James, and a third by Leo Tolstoy (I found a book of masterpiece novellas; can you tell?), and I might write very intelligent stuff about that stuff they were talking about -- humanity and love and stuff. And snow.

But the real story of my real life right now is OxiClean. I don't understand this. This is a product that flat out works, I mean like miracle rejuvenation of yellowed t-shirts, curtains, stained couch cushions, and what is euphemistically referred to as "pet stains" on the carpet. This motherf'ing stuff works! I am obsessed with it like Henry James was obsessed with insecure and naive women! I am as proud of it as a Russian aristocrat is of his horses and serfs! D.H. Lawrence should've written "Sons, Lovers, and OxiClean"!

It is sold in stores. I did not realize this until I looked for it in Target and Ralphs. It's a real product, not just a late night TV virtualclean thing, like a NoFuzz Duster (I made that up; good idea, no?). It is a legitimate, though MAGICAL, cleaning bubbler thing that agitates the material and lifts the dirt away (as I understand it). I bought a 16 gallon bucket just for OxiCleaning, and I am so happy! Everything is clean now!

I must grow a beard and yell at people about this product. Seriously, why the annoying pitchman? Is he Mr.Oxi? Why is he yelling? He makes the product seem like a rip-off when it is most certainly a rip-on. I can't figure out the advertising, but I am insisting you start cleaning all your stains and spills with the O.X.I. or I can not visit your house.

This Year's IFC Independent Spirit Awards nominees

Yeah, whatever -- the awards were weeks ago (months? Who can keep track?), way to be on top of all the new stuff out there. And I watched these before the awards so that I could vote, so these are opinions that have been allowed to sit and ripen, like dates, or pickles. That makes them sweeter and tangy-er.

Disclaimer: I hate independent films, just on principle. Don't we all? They're grainy, and slow, and stuck in a Hal Ashby world when the rest of us are in a McG world, right? Am I right, people? And they're so concerned about everyone's feelings, ewww. Crash some cars; then everyone will feel better.

Never mind that most of my favorite, most cherished movies of the last five or fifty years have been tiny little indies. That is not my point. I want to love Hollywood movies, but they make it so damned hard.

So I popped these films into the old player with my usual sense of dread, but look what happened: something wonderful!

(These are in no particular order)

1. LAND OF PLENTY -- look, I've heard of Wim Wenders, I don't think it's fair that he's on this list. But I guess if you make a movie for three cents, then you earn your props. This movie starred Michelle Williams, who I will watch in anything, anywhere, at any time. I have loved her since DICK, and I loved that she showed up in the great THE STATION AGENT, and she is luminous and expressive and great. It also starred some dude named John Diehl, never heard of him, but he too was great. This movie was kind of annoying and precious and 9/11-ny at first, and I was worried, but the more it went on, the more I liked it. It is buoyed up by two things: its own sense of humor (as in the scenes with the guy who works for the Diehl character), and the incredible letter that the dead mother wrote to her brother Diehl, which Williams delivers. The letter is one of the finest pieces of writing I've ever heard (Diehl reads it to us in voiceover). There is a depth of emotional understanding and compassion in it that took my breath away.

2. QUINCEANERA -- Ok, I'm dumb, I kept confusing this with REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES because all those Latino movies look alike, right? Am I right, people? They couldn't be more different. I loved this movie because it was very matter-of-fact in what happens to the characters and in how they deal with life. Stuff happens, they deal with it. Period. There are no neon signs saying GAY! OLD! KICKED OUT! PREGNANT! REALLY GAY! POOR! The characters are people, and stuff happens to it, and some of the stuff is mean, and some is nice, and they are themselves sometimes mean and sometimes nice. That's why I loved it -- because I believed it, and I really wanted many nice things to happen to the people in it.

3. MAN PUSH CART -- I have a lot of reservations with this one. I mean, holy shit, did that man ever push that cart. He sure did. I know because I watched him do so for many long minutes. It's worth seeing because the cast is great and the triangle between the cart-man, the lady, and the creepy businessman is really great and subtle and inescapable.

4. SORRY, HATERS -- Robin Wright Penn fucking RULES. She is fantastic, and Abdel Kechiche and Sandra Oh are really impressive as well. This is a fun and surprising movie that Wright Penn totally owns.

5. ROAD TO GUANTANAMO -- Every time I watch the news these days I think of this documentary and the appalling information within it.

6. BUBBLE -- Steven Soderbergh goes back to his roots, or even underneath his roots, for this one. Watch it, then definitely watch the making of extras for lots of excellent information about how it came together. The first twenty minutes or so are so boring you will wonder why you're sitting there watching it when you could be staring into space in peace, but then it winds tighter and tighter until you can't stand it. I was so worried for the characters as the movie progressed that I think I got hypertension just by watching it. They asked for so little out of life! And they couldn't even have that without problems problems problems! A wonderful story and a film that is truly inspiring for those who still believe in truly indie movies.

7. HALF NELSON and PAN'S LABYRINTH -- You don't need me to tell you how great these are and that you should watch them.

The end.